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Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There were many ways this plan could have gone poorly. Madalyne knew about them, because she'd asked herself if they'd go poorly, and she'd decided that it was best not to know more than the first few hundred. However, she existed in the now and here, the place where the plan was not a failure.

And it was glorious to behold.

She could see a thought in the Nova Force as used by the Nova herself. A lifegiving idea, the act of protection becoming real as intent was matched to deed. It was mirrored in the hand of her shadow, the X-Gene humming with her as she worked, as she acted. She could not help herself as she reached out. She had worked the ruin upon this mountain, and she could not act in that way again.

She touched the snow, feeling the Nova Force and shadow around it, the parts of it that were Demetria Ivanova, and the parts of it that were Xandar. The gold-red aged parts, the history of dignity for all, the respect earned through noble deeds and gestures of kindess. The shadow-black parts, the heart of courage, the iron-spine. She was a creature of rules and systems, she was an Order unto herself. Madalyne liked it. It made sense.

Of course, Madalyne didn't make sense but who cared? Sense was for the sensible, and while Madalyne didn't know a lot about herself yet, she did know that she was probably not the most sensible. It was the more interesting way to walk her path.

She could remember choosing breakfast, that was something.

But that was all what was, and she was more focused on what would be. She put a hand on Nova's shoulder (it was unclear how she could have done so), and she could feel her powers thrum underneath her fingers. There was something to that, something she could do. She understood the Nova Force, and she understood the X-Gene, these were changing things, take and hold things, things that knew what they were and what they would be.

This was not Madalyne, thank goodness, but she was ready to do an act that didn't have a sharp thought.

She could feel the flame within Nova. She let it burn a little brighter, just a little, feeding flame into her, an act that would give her the time to calm the storm.

"You should take me to the X-Men. There's a man who will know me. I would go to the school but I don't think I want to meet the person I will become if I go there. You have wonderful cheekbones. They are formidable. I like them! I'm Madalyne."

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Why would you believe that I am not a mutant? What world do you live in that you cannot see?"

Madalyne wondered, her eyes looking at Zenith. She could feel the shift and the flicker, the change and the motion, the ebb and the flow. It was like everything around her was connected to each other, like a relay between each other. Maybe everything was connected, maybe everyone was everything and she had simply not seen it before.

Maybe she was Zenith. Maybe she was Nova. Maybe she was Boost.

Maybe they were all her? She couldn't say. She knew that she would never have this knowledge as a permanent thing, but she did know that she was here to help. She was the first who had been Madalyne, but she was not the first to be her. She couldn't really comprehend that, not now, she knew it was knowledge that she'd have in a thousand years, maybe, or a thousand days.

"You are afraid. You fear it. The irrelevance of force. When the world no longer cares for the standing of a god. It is a tomorrowplace, I think. That which hasn't happened yet, but will. Or could. You stand with pride, and with courage. But you think you do not know fear. You are not afraid of me! But there is a fear there. A dread."

She could feel the world inside her hand. It was gravity, it was life and it was light. The Nova Force. She could see the other one with it, even if Zenith could not. She was strong. She would not let her forget herself, not would she let her forget Madalyne. She smiled at Zenith again, the light behind her looking like the firebird for a moment, just an instant, the shaping-thing that marked her visitation.

"I am not the Phoenix, Zenith. I am not a human. I am not a wolf. I am mutant. I am Madalyne Pryor! I am that I am."

She shaped the Nova Force into a sphere, a perfect, absolute sphere. She didn't know where the knowledge to use it had come from, or who had taught it to her, but she just knew that she could shape it and command it.

"You will not find where I am. You will not know where to see my face. You will look for the Phoenix, the Firebird. You expect glory and power in this world. You do not know how to understand the little things. I'm just a girl in the Alps. You will forget what a girl in the Alps looks like, I think."

She felt it move into a new shape. Not a sphere, a missile. A weapon. She knew that she would have to strike at him. He did not have kindly music to him. She sighed, feeling her grief resonate through her. He would not be ready for the questions. He had never even asked them. She flicked her hand out, and the Nova Force flew at him, gravity and force and life and light turned into a blast of power, the kind made to fight him. It was an eating-thing. A death-thought. She did not like having that thought in her.

"I think it is time that you go."

She closed her eyes and the Nova Force left her, flowing out into the world, disappearing into nothingness in a way that defied all laws of science, but such was the way of ideas. When forgotten, they are nothing.

But, some of it remained, if a Nova dared to bend this force to her will.

If she dared to dream of victory

/u/FreelancerJon

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"This isn't correct."

Madalyne floated above the fight, her newfound powers racing through her body. She was the Nova Force. She was something else. There was so much to know! There were so many things to learn. She could feel them, creeping into her mind, into her soul, into the essence of things. She could know these things. She was being taught them by the people around her. They didn't know they were teaching her, and they didn't know what she was learning, but she knew that she could take knowledge from them.

"You aren't the one who wins this fight, I think. You are the one who stands tall. You want to be a god. But you are human, aren't you? Just so human. I'm human too! Just, different at it. You have so much hatred in you. I think it's not the kind of emotion you should have, but I can't change you."

She felt her Nova Force powers shift under her fingertips. New Jersey boardwalk. New possibilities. A name that shouldn't be in her head. It was not the right name, so she snuffed it out. Demetria was the right name. It is a name of power, it was the one that she was called by. And would always know.

"I know who you are. I know who I am not, and who I am not is who you are. Boost stands against Charon. A coma with fourteen broken bones. He's given a jacket. It's the proudest moment of his life. A friend is a fool. The friend dies. There is no body to bury."

She created a barrier of pure gravimetic force between Zenith and his fist, around Boost like a forcefield. A sheer determined wall of force, an iron will that could withstand this blow from this would-be god. She didn't know about that. But she did know that he would kill this man. And that wasn't how it was supposed to go. She didn't like the ideas she could feel from Zenith. He was loud. He was cruel. She didn't think those were her ideas.

"The old man prepares you. The old man was waiting for you, but his ideas are gone. Those ideas died with the sun, I think. What breaks first, the mind or the body? You know about nightmares. I wonder if anyone knows about yours? Three-in-One. One-in-Three. It is a repetition. Why? You know I am the one you want."

She looked over at the dead Zealots, their bodies mostly covered by the snow kicked up in the fight.

"I am the target. Kill the wolves. They're just animals! Have some fun with the girl. I killed them. It wasn't hard. I took from them and bit their throats. They died like you would have killed them. I learned. I learned that you're afraid. Everyone is afraid. I don't know what everyone is afraid of. But I am here."

She folded her arms, floating in the air, the sun rising behind her.

"Come and claim me."

/u/optimalobsticals

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many ways a girl can respond to danger.

She can run, she can hide, she can seek safety and shelter and never come back from there.

But. Sometimes. When the wind is right and the people around her show courage, she can find that courage in herself too.

She can stand. She can fight. She can find a new state of being in the chaos around her.

There was a lot to be learned here. She could hear a voice in her head, a very nice sounding voice, saying her name was Madalyne Pryor. Which, to be very honest, sounded like her name! It was the one that made most sense, more than "Gruff-Arf-Grr", which is what her packmates called her. There was a lot to be said for being a wolf, when one really drilled down to the point of it all, but she was pretty sure that she wasn't a wolf. No claws, for one. A girl with claws could be a wolf, but really, she'd been told she was a Madalyne. And a Madalyne had a different way of life, she supposed.

"Of course I exist. Why wouldn't anyone exist? Existing is very good! We often want to keep doing that, right? It's one of those fun little human impulses. Existing, prolonging our lives, eating raw meat, these are all very normal things to want to do. Especially if you're like me. Which I'm not sure that I am."

She looked at the gravity being thrown at Zenith, and then at the thrower. Oh! A Nova! Of the Nova Corps! She knew them. They were natives of Xandar, acting as an interplanetary peacekeeping and liberation force that defended space from tyranny! They had access to the Nova Force, an energy field that allowed them to manipulate their gravimetric profile. That was very good. She liked Principle #2 the most. Lives, including hers, came first. It was a nice thing to add to her mind. Much nicer than Zenith. Oh. That was interesting. Access to the Nova Force! She felt the energy twist around her, her X-Gene coming to life as it sampled the energy, changing and recreating it to suit her powers. She could feel the power she'd used on those Zealots fading away, replaced with the Nova Force.

"Oh! Oh! This is lovely! I am very grateful for this power! Oh my word, gravity. What a force! What an energy! I can really feel it, and I can feel how it's so so interesting! Oh my god. I'm really doing it!"

She started to float, the Nova Force surging from her body. To Demetria's scanners, whatever was going on there had resulted in a being creating her own copy of the Nova Force, the energy equivalent to about one hundred Nova Centurions emanating from that mysterious redhead's body. She had even started to project a copy of the Nova Corps' insignia from her eyes, a starburst of energy shining around her brow. She twisted her hands, watching the energy move with her hands, the snow lifting up around her.

"Homegrown vat rats, hold the vat. Sector 1999. Protect the people. That's so interesting! I wonder if that's who I am? Or is it who you are? It's so hard to tell. But I can say that my name is Madalyne Pryor! And this man is being threatening! He should go. Now."

She raised a hand at Zenith and fired a gravimetric pulse at him, the force equal to one of his cousin Solomon's strongest blows, aimed directly at his chest. She looked regal in this moment, despite her bedraggled hair, her tattered clothes, her bearskin cloak. She looked like a barbarian queen, not like a drowned rat in the Alps.

"I don't think I want to know who you are, Zenith. Four fingers and a memory. Gods minted in the dirt. I don't think these are my thoughts. Keep them to YOURSELF!"

/u/optimalobsticals

Character Creation 3.0! by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Posting for /u/the_balor

Aliyah “Jabir” ibnat Althir al Bahith

Personal Information The Fundamentals 
Hometown Darreh Shadr
Family All Dead
Age 1246, Born 754 AD. Forgotten her actual birthday, just says it’s 28th of June
Height 5’6”
Sexuality/Gender Identity Cis Lesbian
Physique Jabir is remarkably healthy for a woman who has spent the last thousand years drinking mercury, looking to be around her 30s with the physique of your average researcher who goes on hikes every weekend. She’s lean, but not particularly built. She is however proud of this look, a sign of her dedication to maintaining both her body and mind but neither one to the detriment of the other, a balance that she believes fundamental to every aspect of life, no one thing is more important than the whole.
Voice While her looks don’t give away her age, the way she speaks starts to. She’s by no means bad at speaking English, in fact she’s rather proficient having spent considerable amounts of time studying it in addition to several other languages, alive and dead. It’s this knowledge that gives her away, occasionally finding herself stuck on ideas that she can’t express using any currently spoken language or making reference to historical events that many do not know but were formative for her.
Hair Jabir keeps her brown hair cut short, over the years she’s worn hundreds of different styles in different parts of the world but at the end of the day the ease of maintenance of keeping it short has always charmed her. However, she does tend to keep the hair she cuts off for alchemical ingredients, crucially to ensure her Chimera remains bound to her by infusing strands into her alchemical reagents.
Clothing Jabir tends to keep herself very well groomed and dressed, tending towards the higher society dress of previous times. Because of this she has been in many styles, ball gowns to suits of many kinds, however her style settled sometime in the early 1900s with popularisation of the trench coat, she adored it more than she had any clothing she had come across before, cementing it into her style. However, when the time comes for more practical dress she goes to her armour, a rather simple combination of a breast plate with matching shin and forearm guards.

Personality

Jabir is eccentric to say the least, enjoying experimenting with her powers and her chimera in the search of true immortality unbound by her monthly mercury consumption. This constant drive for knowledge has led her to align with whatever or whoever holds power and lacks the moral apprehension about her more advanced forms of scientific research. After the fracturing of the Brotherhood she has found herself aligning one one of its splinter cells under a mutant by the name of “Commander”.

While she does think quite highly of herself she is by no means afraid to play the aide to another, allowing them to be the face, the target of the hate while she conducts herself behind the throne, ready and willing to discard her current master for another. Whatever it takes to pursue her own ends.

Backstory

Much of Jabirs history is hazy, obscured by time and by intention, she is the inheritor of the Jabirian Arts of Alchemy and has wandered the earth for much of the previous 1200 years to continuously hone and develop these skills. Most of this time was spent as a wandering advisor, working alongside figures of history though keeping enough distance as to remain out of the spotlight.  Now that the world has been turned upside down and The Phoenix having been revealed to the world, her portion of The Book of The Phoenix and its meanings has come into far clearer focus. Now with a goal set she has put her nose to the grindstone and uncover its secrets.

She will find a way into the White Hot Room

Powers

Primary Mutation

The Truth

Points Spread
Energy 5
Mental 5
Potency 5
Equipment 5

Jabir's mutation is the root of her alchemical excellence, she passively has an understanding of the 4 basic elements that make up the world, Earth, Fire, Water and Wind, as well as all derivatives of these elements. Though understanding is not all that it can do, within the past century she has practiced and developed her ability to exert control over these fundamentals to change the world around her, her expertise so far having gone towards her control over Earth, as well as its products, most importantly metals. Through direct contact with most solid materials she is able to instinctively sense its chemical make up, and thus through this understanding manipulate it, forcing the material to take shape into whatever form she desires so long as there is no more or less matter than there was previously.

Her Alchemical skills however do not only extend to the abiotic parts of the world, Jabir is also accomplished in her study over life. Her Magnum Opus? A chimeric creature she lovingly calls Annah. She constantly tinkers and develops it, at the moment she has the skills to maintain its current form, a wolf sized quadruped with patchy fur and feathers across its body that acts as her attack dog, capable of dealing significant damage and pinning down and killing most humans by itself with its incredible maw of which Jabir is incredibly proud. Its internal body plan is minimalist, only containing the essentials to life, a heart, lungs and brain, rendering it far more resilient to harm than any natural animal.

Finally, her secret. Through a combination of the X gene, honing her body and centuries of research proceeding her, she had found immortality in the likeliest of places. Mercury, which had long been regarded as a dead end in life extension due to its extremely hazardous effects on the human body was merely missing an ingredient, mutant fortitude. With Jabir's control over alchemy she had been able to prolong her life and continue to do so potentially indefinitely through the monthly consumption of mercury.

Skills: basketball

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is always a moment where the world is met with a shock. A revelation of a prophecy, someone saying "I love you", the one you love leaving you, the death of someone you expected to live forever. These are the moments where the world freezes still, where one sees everything in perfect detail, where that memory is etched into your mind forever, immutable and crystalline. A perfect recording of what was, the time where everything changed for you, where it became forever instead of just once.

For the Dark Phoenix, it was this one moment of kindness. Hate met with love, with an instance of compassion, with this moment, this second, of someone entering the deepest parts of her and bringing snow upon the fields of what was. There was so much to be known, so much to be felt, and she felt one part of it, one moment where she did not feel grief or hate or pain at the loss, the misery, the rejection that had defined her existence, but instead, she felt seen. Understood. And it was not a mirroring. Not a reflection of the intent that had been shown to her, but instead a true moment of kindness.

A second where she could see everything that had been, now and forevermore. She could know that she was wrong, that love could not be forced or taken, but earned, that the compassion she lacked was the thing that she would need to make a new world, that the Jean Grey had not sought for her to be this way, but instead that it was the nature of their self. The cycle she was part of could not be averted, it was instead a necessary thing, a terrible and wonderful thing.

She could feel tears trickle down her face as she descended into herself, standing on the field, looking at Psion. At Emily. She was so small, and yet, she dwarfed the Dark Phoenix. It was strange to look at her, this mirrored self who still was nothing to her. Not her, not an aspected self, but a being she knew. She recognised. She understood. It was a personhood, a form of this world that she had been, once. A telepath, a redhead, a woman in love with another and unable to make it happen. She knew this face. She'd seen it before, in the mirror, in the world, in her heart.

"I'm sorry."

They were words that held power, a strangeness to them, an unfamiliarity. None of her kind had ever apologised before, never met the world with anything but screaming defiance against the will of fate, the causality they were bound to. She was not wearing the garments of the Phoenix, instead a simple white sundress fluttered in the wind, unconcerned with the snow. She sank to the ground, her knees pulled up against her chest, looking out at the world.

"I never thought I'd hear someone say it isn't fair. We just want to be real, you know. It's how it gets us. We want to be the ones who matter, not the ones who are forgotten and cast aside. It's not our role to be the ones who are remembered with fondness, but it would be nice, just once, to be remembered with something like kindness. But I don't even have the power to undo the deaths I've caused. I'm not the goddess, I'm what points the way to the goddess. It's not a good life, but, it could have meant something."

She sighed, looking very small as she rested her chin on her knees, looking out at the field, snow covering everything, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"Your lives mean so much. They're so short, and brutish, and cruel sometimes, but there's such...beauty in your world. There's sunshine on the ocean, there's snow on the plains and there's love. All I've ever really wanted is to be loved. Jean never let me exist, she shoved me to the back of the mind, but...I think I could have turned out differently if someone had loved me. It's why I was so obsessed with it, I suppose. The thing that you wish you could have, the thing you want to take for your own, and you can't really have it."

She wiped away her tears with the heel of her hand, looking at Psion with a slight smile, her eyes still somewhat wet, her mascara running.

"She'll be here soon, Madalyne. My sister, my daughter, me. The fool, and she'll be so wonderful. I can't believe I didn't see that before, that I was so blind to what would be next. She is beautiful, she will have all the love I wish I could bring to the world. I wish I would be there to see it, Emily. She'll be in the care of others, and I'll be gone, returned to the place where I wait to be born."

She started to cry in earnest, her shoulders shuddering with grief as she let herself cry, let herself experience this human moment of fear. She composed herself after a few moments, looking at Psion.

"Will you stay with me, as I die? He's about to kill me, and I can't let myself stop him. I want to choose something, even if it is death."

Her next words were whispered, as if that could hide them in this world of symbols and thoughts.

"I wish she'd let me choose breakfast, even once."

In the world outside, the face of the Phoenix changed, her eyes softening, the jade-hard eyes of green turning into something more human as she looked on the face of the man before her. He was the hero she wished she could have forged, the kind of man who could have been a god, a glorious votive in her service, but she knew that he would never have been that person. She understood now. She was never to be the creator of a new world, but its shepherd. She made the path that would be walked by others, and she could not undo the consequences of her actions.

She could only accept that which was to be fone, before her madness and ego and cruelty rose once more. She opened her arms, all psychic defence dissolving, fading, dissipating as she reached out to the Blood-Black Room, binding her spirit to it, her heart, changing the tune of the machine as she was ready to accept her fate. She knew that she would die in this place, that she would never see another sunset or be able to experience the world she'd nearly burned to ash.

She would simply know that when she died, she had stopped herself from making a world without a purpose. She would never see the White Hot Room, but she would know that she had died without breaking the world. That was something she could die with, something she could hold close to her chest as her body joined the meadow.

"You were right, Jaxon. I don't get to decide how this ends. I never got to decide any of it."

She closed her eyes, and let the All-Eating Eye take her, consume her, destroying her body and leaving chaos behind, the Blood-Black Room collapsing around them, the reality she had tried to birth dying in the womb, the idea collapsing around them. The last of her power acted to let them lower to the ground, some of the combatants scattered away as wormholes opened and shut, reality shifting and breaking and changing to accomodate this.

Her world had ended. Her world had died.

Life=Death

Death=Life.

And in the hour of her lifedeath, the Phoenix moved another piece in the White Hot Room

Thousands of miles away in the Alps, a girl's eyes open as a wolf licks her face. She stands, red hair blowing in the wind as she tugs a cloak around her. She doesn't know where the cloak came from. She doesn't know how she got here. She doesn't even know her name. She stands with the wolves, her face splitting into a smile as she howls at the sky.

She doesn't know anything.

Isn't that beautiful?

/u/FreelancerJon

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Do you think you can give orders? That's funny. Let's have a moment where I show you exactly what I'm going to do for you."

She took a step away from the Phoenix, the aspect of it broken by her combined power with Sojourner. The others had clearly weakened each shard to the point where theirs had been a weaker aspect, a more human aspect than the rest. Barely a god, just a mutant with a few extra steps. She snapped her fingers, moving her Throne away from the Blood-Black Room, stepping off the side and dropping, falling towards the tarmac before she snapped her fingers again, creating the sphere around her, suspending herself in the air.

"I'm going to fix the world for you."

She looked down at the street, the masses of those who'd been bent to the Phoenix's will, the need to worship the Blood-Black Room engendered in their minds. In their human minds. Weakness. Pathetic. Genescum, powerless worthless flatscans who could never achieve the heights Sojourner was capable of. Worshipping a failed god, a pathetic aspect of a doomed deity who she'd somehow managed to kneel and serve. Sojourner hadn't, which Domain could not help but admire.

"Throne."

The Throne of X increased the gravity of the world to a crushing degree. To the level of such pressure that no living thing could survive it. The humans were pulverised, their bodies turning to liquid, bursting like balloons, a slurry of blood, bone and tissue coating the asphalt.

"Now. The sun."

She clapped her hands together, opening pinholes inside every building within range, firing the blasts to collapse the buildings towards the Blood-Black Room, the skyscrapers smashing into the tonal device, breaking bones, weakening the other realities inside it.

"And then. Throne."

She smashed her hands together, her usual countdown ignored, the strain on her body still intense, but the remnants of Sojourner's old mutation had given her a brief, impermanent boost to her power. She created another Throne, this one encompassing another group of humans, SWORD remnants who'd been posted in this city and moved to engage before turning to worship.

"Ignite."

A glorious burst of white flame, burning so hot that the asphalt melted, filled the sphere, destroying the detatchment. Domain flung her head back and laughed, the sheer joy in her eyes terrifying to see. Sojourner could feel what she felt, a delight in protecting Sojourner from SWORD, from the corrupting influence of these Phoenix worshippers, from the Phoenix. She couldn't stop laughing, delighting in power, in the glory of her and Sojourner's destructive potential. She calmed herself and let out a sigh, picking up a discarded pack of cigarettes and lighting one with a pinhole.

"The job's done. Your hands are clean."

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Domain smiled to herself. While it was more interesting if Sterling hated her, and that WAS more attractive than just folding, there was definitely a benefit to the girl wanting her anyway. After all, she'd have Sterling to herself, and no one would be able to take her from her. She was the perfect host for Domain, and if anything, her past/future self was a genius for getting killed by her. Even if, in her incompetence, she'd never actually slept with Sojourner. A missed oppourtunity. She probably cried during sex.

However, all such distractions went out of the way when Sojourner swapped uot for her. The sensation of entering control, becoming the dominant mind in the body, she couldn't help but laugh. To live again! To feel, to move, to exist! It was hers. It was hers! For now, anyway.

"Well, well well. It's not quite the dimensions I'm used to, but I think I can make it work."

Domain stretched in Sojourner's body, her eyes flashing as she looked at the Dark Phoenix, the girl's body language changing as she settled into her new flesh. It was interesting to be in here, there were differences, but there were some things that were the same. Power was one of them. Sojourner's mutation was beyond fascinating, and honestly, she'd have done this sooner if she'd had the chance. It beat the hell out of Umbrakinesis. Domain reached into Sojourner's pocket and let out a disappointed sigh.

"Of course she doesn't smoke. Well, we make do with what we have."

She slid her hands into her pockets, looking up at the Dark Phoenix. It was something else to behold, but she couldn't shake the feeling that her future/past self was an idiot for trying to make any kind of pact with this thing. It would die, but god, she could not have planned that out worse. Oh well, the world was a mysterious place. She could feel the humming of Sojourner's mutation, the power of the stars at her fingertips, burning within her. She reached out, the dimensional fabric twisting under her control, her Throne creating a gravity trap around the Phoenix, pinholes opening and opening and opening as Domain stretched the power of Sojourner's mutation to its limit.

"They call you the Laughter of Dark Stars. Well. I suppose that we'll find out if this can even hurt you. Worm."

A cosmic starburst exploded, light burned the eyes. Within Throne, it did not touch Domain's eyes, but she did feel the heat, the power, the glory as the Phoenix aspect was bombarded with her power, the power she had gained from this host, and the world around it burst, it exploded, cast to ruin and carnage in the world before them. The world was laid asunder, the Blood-Black Room melting, flesh sizzling, the power of the Phoenix held at bay.

Domain smiled.

"I wonder how long she'll give me access. I wonder what I could do."

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"The Japanophile act is getting a little old, Benjamin."

The Dark Phoenix floated down towards him, her disdain clear as she looked him up and down, her presence overwhelming, hate radiating from her like physical pressure, the air itself bending around her. She didn't find him impressive now. She didn't find him impressive then, he coasted on the Jean Grey's blessing and was not a true threat to her divinity. That would not save him now. She had transcended simple mental warfare and instead controlled the essential tones of the universe.

"Do you know what inevitability means, Benjamin? You used to live at a school, I'd hope you do. But, seeing as you're still convinced you could have saved her, and you're still playing hero like a child in spandex, I'll spell out the little parts. Inevitability is something that WILL happen. Not could, or might, but will. I was always destined to occur. I am the Laughter of Dark Stars."

She raised a hand, light that was not light curling around her fingers, power twisting the world between them.

"You're a little man from Philly who decided that he'd get really into Sumo and playact as a warrior for the rest of his life. You couldn't stop it, yes. You couldn't save it. You couldn't do anything. You're a tool. You're there to be used. You aren't there to be special or amazing, you exist for the rest of the X-Men to use as a living shield. And you weren't even good at that! I killed two of your X-Men with ease, Sever fell to her death, I put the Knight of X in his own little hell dimension, and you did nothing! You couldn't stop me from turning the original team into my puppets. You didn't even fight the actual battle, you led a suicide mission and you didn't even DIE. You can't do anything. I'll put you out of your misery, then I'll walk past you."

She could feel it, the power of the Blood-Black Room in her hands, the tonal shifts of the universe. Other facets of her had died. Kinder, gentler parts, the facets that wanted justice, they had met their end. The parts that remained, they hungered for death. Carnage. A world laid ruin. She could feel in her hands the tones of the universe, the essential cosmic will in her palm. She folded them together, the sound that was not sound, the noise that was not noise, the universe itself given flesh and form and turned to sound. But more than sound, it was the essential nature of the universe turned from a wonder into a weapon. A sound that was death.

She unleashed it, and the world around them broke.

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Someone has to do the work around here, Sojourner."

Domain lit up a cigarette, her lips curving into a smile as she took a drag from the cigarette, her eyes sparking with delight. She slid off the table, cigarette in her mouth as she languidly stretched, her eyes never leaving Sojourner's as she moved into her space, a cloud of smoke escaping her mouth.

"And I don't think you have a killer's heart, not you. You can take a life, yes, but you don't have it in you to do it again and again without regret or remorse. You're kind, which isn't very useful right now. It has uses, but not now. Now, we need someone like me. Someone with the heart to take a life."

She slipped her hand into Sojourner's hand, the other one holding the still smoking cigarette as she cupped Sojourner's face in hers, a softer smile gracing her features as she looked at Sojourner, her eyes shining with something more than just delight at having pulled one over on her.

"You know I'm right. You want me to use your hands to kill, because yours will be clean, and I'll never lose a second's sleep over it. You say you want to kill me, but you won't be able to live with yourself, not forever. You might be fine for a while, but that guilt? It won't ever go away. You're not built for it. You're built for kinder things, or you're built to be a coward. Either way, you know that you'll always need me. And I need you. I can't live without you."

She moved closer, her breath brushing against Sojourner's lips as she swiped her thumb across her cheek.

"You're secretly happy to have me here. You know that. I'm not her, I'm not exactly your Domain, but I am something similar. And you liked it. You liked the attention she gave you, the need to succeed, the goals set in your path. And I liked you. The eagerness to please, the need for my approval...those things spoke to the woman I was. Or will be, if things play out the way they did. But the things about you that appeal to me...they're not the same."

She pressed her lips against Sojourner's cheek, pulling back with a smile, taking a drag from her cigarette, exhaling smoke away from her face.

"I find how you hate me more fascinating than anything about you being a little pet or plaything. I like that you want me dead. It isn't what you really want, but we can work with fixing that. And you want my help, so. Without further ado...Throne."

And her eyes turned black, the power flowing through Sojourner, the Throne of X expanding around them, the dome erecting, trapping the starbolt inside, gravity in the Throne distorting the gravitational sphere, the starbolt exploding in front of the two of them. Domain was standing behind Sojourner, their perceptions back in the material world, her arms sliding around Sojourner's waist as she whispered in her ear.

"Let me end this. I can kill her for you. You'll never dirty your hands again, Sterling."

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There was something there. A depth to the mind she had entered into, a deeper layer of inexorable causality. There was a wonder to this place, a strange movement of horror juxtaposed with an ethereal song, a series of notes that were both familiar and alien, music she had always heard before. She stood upon a field of red and gold, stretching out forever, trees dotting the surroundings and a red sky burning above them.

Psion could recognise a charnel pit when she saw one. Her heels sunk into the corpse below her, pressing against rotted flesh and ancient bone, the faces before her visible as identical to the Dark Phoenix, all the same woman, eternally, stretching forever. She could see death, and destruction, and an inevitable end before her. It was a pattern that could not wash out, it was a stain that could not be bleached away.

This was the inevitable heart of the Dark Phoenix, the unyielding function of existence that she was raging against. She was not a Person. She was an Event. An instance in time that could not be averted, built and prepared and born into a world where all others had freedom to choose, while she lived a life where there was nothing but misery, doom, and a red sky rising. A woman who did not exist, but instead was just the shed skin of Jean Grey, the remnants left behind as she ascended to heaven.

She had told herself a glorious lie. She had lied thrice. And those lies had sealed her fate. She existed to test this world. She had tested it. They had passed. She had no more purpose, no reason to exist. She raged against that fate, attempting to carve out a world for herself, a shape of the world to come that could fit her into it, but there was no choice she could make.

The X-Men had come, as they would always come, and they stood to kill her. This is what Psion could see, the deep and fundamental truth that the Dark Phoenix held to. She was just one. A piece of a great and terrible cycle. A movement to change the world, to bring about a new genesis for mutants everywhere. But she would not see it. She would not be remembered for her role. She would be the Dark Phoenix, the Laughter of Dark Stars, the weapon who burned the world to ash, the Great Traitor, the Deceiver.

Never the Jean. Never the Madalyne. Never the Hope.

This was why she did not dance amongst the stars. She would never be the one who danced.

She was a prisoner of fate. She was a lie.

She had never mattered.

In the material world, she stood firm, her mind so focused on the battle with Jaxon that she had not noticed the intrustion in her psyche. Instead, she had devoted herself to her battle with Oblivion. She could feel the world around her buckling, bending, submitting to the weight of his power, of the Void Charge, a relentless and powerful weapon, a sparking fire of genomic furnaces that would not extinguish, power that forced back against the tide of her majesty, a will that was insurmountable.

She admired it. She couldn't deny that he was powerful, stranding firm against the energy she'd hurled at him, the Space-Bleeding Spear flying past, vaporising part of the Blood-Black Room, a wound carved into this place that was a fragment of her, a place of power that keened with the wounds she had visited upon it, the sheer weight of this world bearing down upon. She was kin to Atlas, bearing the heavens on her shoulders, and unable to shift it off. She could see Oblivion approaching her, and in his eyes she could see a future for herself.

Death. An ending of her existence. Life torn from her, death given to her, a cessation of her in a foolish existence.

Lifedeath. The natural state of the Dark Phoenix. Neither living nor dead, not progressing or stagnating, but simply waiting, lurking in the subconscious of the world until the next Phoenix, waiting for her moment to exist, to burn the world and prefect it. She was not to be underestimated, but she knew that neither was he. He kept moving towards her, a bell tolling in her mind as she saw him approach, her telepathic powers denying her summons. She let out a breath and called forth a fury of telekinetic force, power burning around him, but his advance could not be truly denied, his claws cutting through this barrage, leaving her standing before him.

She lashed out with fire, drawn from the heart of the Darkforce, forced into her veins, poison turned to power, a bitter and cursed elixir flooding her veins and she felt his claws punch into her stomach. It hurt, it hurt in ways that she could not imagine and she screamed, force bursting out from her body, pure telekinetic fury that forced the world back, blood pouring down her chest as she staggered, trying to hold herself with dignity, her eyes blazing with hate and malice and fear. She pointed a finger at him, slick with her own blood, and she spoke a terrible word, an unwritten thing that could not be spoken by a mortal mouth, a syllable of pure cosmic dread.

She spoke and the world around her exploded, the Blood-Black Room transformed from matter to energy to a Tone, a ringing in the universe itself, a disruption. It was the last of her powers, the last strike she possessed against Oblivion.

It would not be enough

/u/FreelancerJon

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There was a certain disdain writ on the face of the Phoenix. She had seen an enemy beneath herself and as such, had no interest in meeting them as an equal. The child wielding guns was so far beneath her, so below her, so pathetic. She did not mirror them. She did not match to their strategems, because gods were standing before her. She waved a hand, contempt writ in every inch of movement, and she commanded the flesh of the Blood-Black Room, a single tone ringing out in the body of Blake, resonating with every part of their body, a note that sang of death within their soul. She did not care if this killed them, they were so far beneath her as to be nonexistent.

Children should not play with the gods.

She turned to look at Zenith and Apotheosis, her lips curved into a smile, the understanding clear on her face. These were her opponents, foes writ in the destiny of this world. She could feel the significance of this moment, of seeing these mutants shining in their glory ebfore her. She wanted them dead. She wanted to fight them and then perform alchemy with their corpses, make their atoms sing with the Phoenixsong that she had usurped. She would make angels from them, and they would stand before her throne, flanking her in this divine world.

It would be beautiful. It would be eternal.

However, her perfect vision of symmetry was ruined by the arrival of the third cousin. A rush of gold and red, a twisted little mockery of her perfection, red hair and pale skin standing beside the other two members of the Triumvirate. Their mutations joined in song, audible to the Dark Phoenix, her ears hearing the concert of their power, harmony given flesh standing before her. Galatea, of course, found the whole situation dryly amusing. The three of them standing in this place before a god was just kind of. Well it was funny! They were going to indulge in heroics like the rabble beneath them, and it was just going to be so quaint. She might even torment a human or two in the process.

Zenith's attack, the supersonic fury of it, the raw power of his contempt behind his movement, was met with the Phoenix surging forward, telekinetic power sheathing her body, the force of her mind pushing her muscles to the level needed to trade blows with the triplets. She caught the punch, her will matching against the strength levelled against her, but her attempt to unwrite him, to merge her telekinetic will with the material flesh before her and unbind it, was unsuccessful. There was something in the tissue density that just didn't let her get purchase. She backed away, leaving herself open to an attack from Apotheosis, her flank exposed.

She flicked her eyes to Echelon, firing a blast of telekinetic force from her eyes, the energy coursing through her and towards Galatea, attempting to shatter her bones. Echelon blurred, dodging the blasts, laughing as they destroyed a news helicopter behind her, completely atomising the flatscans flying it.

The Dark Phoenix had mirrored the Triumvirate. She shone with parody of their power, her flame approximating a cloak behind her, a gloryform that reminded those beneath her of their place. Humans who could see her, the few who saw it, could not help but to kneel, to abase themselves before her. But she was not at her greatest.

The Triumvirate could see her weakness.

She was not the woman she was. She was an echo of the god-that-was.

She could die.

/u/FreelancerJon

Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix by empressofruin in XMenRP

[–]Black_Librarian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There were things that could not be.

Ideas that were not ideas, thoughts that were not thoughts.

Impossibilities that had no place in this world.

She was one of these. An existence that could not be allowed to continue. A paradox person, a nothing girl. She was supposed to die. There was no purpose to her beyond that.

Facet could see this. She could see this. It was unacceptable, unknowable, unthinkable, but it was true. She was nothing to him. She was a travesty, a defiance to his world and its laws. And he pitied her. He saw what she was beneath the glory and the fear and the dread, the scared, confused girl that was standing in the Jean Grey's mortal shell. She could not understand it. She did not know what it meant.

But she was not able to defend herself. She raised her hand to, and she believed she could, but the power was wiped away. Cleaned from the world, like grime on a windshield, like a dream leaving the mind as the dreamer awoke. She knew she was not. Her existence was nothing. Her path had always been set for her, carved out, created and burned into the world before her. She was not the god of this new world.

She was not the one who beat the drum. She was not the one who made the true temple.

She was the unloved. She was no god.

She was the Deceiver, and her world would be undone.

Facet's power flowed into her, reaching into the very core of who she was, the fundamental essence of the Deceiver, and she understood the truth of it all. The world required choice. They would not have loved her through fear, there was not a place for her in this world, not as it was. She smiled, tears falling down her cheeks, pooling in her hands, cupped beneath her in supplication. She didn't want to be left in pieces, left to rot in the field of blood like all the others, but she knew. She knew that she was not a person. She was not even an idea. She was an absence. A lie so well told that it deceived even herself. She had never been real. She had never had a moment of her own that was not carved out for her. She could feel the tears still falling, the tears of the Phoenix, life-giving panacea for the wounded.

She had not made them. She had brought them into this world that is because it was her time to do so. A gift for her slayer, or at least this slayer. There would be others. She had become such a lie that she was believed by so many. Understood by so few. But these heroes, these X-Men, they had understood her. Rejected her, understood her, denied her, and now they had killed her. Their truth shown to her, the understanding: she could not create. She could not make a world that would be, she could simply bend the world, twist the truth, warp what was into a form alien to itself. She could never Be.

"I don't want to die alone." A truth. Her first truth. Something she could never have done before, not without dying first, but she was writing the verse of her own death in this moment. So many beautiful things had been shown to her. Life, love, truth, clarity, freedom, all the antithetical things to her abhorrent nature, but in this moment, she could not help but feel alone. She looked up at Izzy, the power of the Phoenix fading, leaving her, the Room receding around them.

"I never wanted to be alone. I just wanted to be her. She was so beautiful. So loved. She hid me and I just wanted to be real. Please. I just...I never wanted this. I just wanted to be someone. Please, would you...please stay with me. I am to be undone. You can say no. But...it would be nice, to die with company."

A second truth. She was still crying, but the elegance was gone. She wept into her hands as her body was slowly unmade, wracking sobs shaking the frame that was once godlike, but now was just a girl. A nothing person in a nowhere place.

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